In short
- Killick changed his name by deed poll specifically so Google searches would find nothing.
- He had been convicted of the same type of fraud twice before — as Mark Killick in 2008, and as Mark Jenkins in 2014.
- 37 homeowners paid a combined £1.47m. Roughly £200k of work was actually completed.
- A company age check alone would have shown TD Cole Ltd was less than two years old when he was taking large deposits.
Mark Killick had already been convicted of fraud twice when he started his third attempt. He knew exactly what stops people from hiring a fraudster: a Google search. So he removed himself from it.
In January 2019, Killick changed his name legally by deed poll to Marc Cole. A month later, he incorporated TD Cole Ltd. His previous convictions — listed under Mark Killick and Mark Jenkins — were invisible to anyone searching his new name. The company was clean. The director was clean. The record was gone.
Over the next two years, 37 homeowners across the south-west of England hired him. They paid deposits, then further instalments. Some got partial work. Most got far less than they paid for. Some got nothing at all.
Three names. Three decades. The same scheme.
This wasn't a spontaneous lapse. It was a career. Killick's fraud history ran back to at least 2008, when he was first convicted under his real name for failing to complete building work after taking deposits. He was convicted again in 2014 — this time operating as Mark Jenkins, his grandfather's name.
By 2019, he had refined the method. A legal name change was cheaper than reform and more effective than moving area. The new name — Marc Cole — created a company director who had no history, no press coverage, no court records. For homeowners doing due diligence, there was simply nothing to find.
How the scheme worked
The prosecution described TD Cole Ltd's operation as a Ponzi scheme in structure: early customers received some work — funded by deposits from later customers. This gave Killick a base of real references. People who called previous clients were told the work was done. It was. What they weren't told was that it had been funded by someone else's deposit that was still outstanding.
"The public will be reassured that this kind of predatory, sophisticated fraud does not go unpunished." — Detective Inspector, Avon and Somerset Police, December 2025
As the victim count grew, the math became impossible. Jobs fell further behind. Customers who chased were told delays were due to materials, subcontractors, weather. Some gave him more money to "get things moving." Eventually, the calls stopped being answered.
What a check would have found
The name change neutralised the most common form of consumer due diligence: a Google search. Search "Marc Cole builder Bristol" in 2020 and you would find nothing concerning. That was deliberate. But a name change can't alter everything.
Four signals a thorough check would have surfaced
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Company age vs contract value TD Cole Ltd was incorporated in February 2019. For anyone signing a contract 12–18 months later, the company was under two years old with no filed accounts. That gap between company age and project scale is a known fraud indicator.
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No trade association membership A legitimate builder taking on large domestic work — extensions, renovations, structural repairs — typically holds Federation of Master Builders membership, NHBC warranty cover, or equivalent. TD Cole Ltd had none. Verifiable in seconds.
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Payment structure red flags Multiple victims reported large upfront payment demands with vague milestone schedules and no fixed completion date in writing. These terms appear disproportionately in fraud prosecutions — and are flaggable before money moves.
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References not independently verified Early victims provided genuine positive references — their work was completed, funded by later victims' deposits. Independent verification of whether a reference's job was fully paid for and genuinely completed would have exposed the structure.
Hiring a builder for a large job?
Before You Pay checks Companies House registration, company age, trade register status, and analyses your quote for the payment patterns that appear in fraud prosecutions.
Check your trader before you pay — £5 →The name change was designed to defeat a Google search. It worked. The checks above don't rely on news coverage — which is precisely why they would have worked.
Primary sources
What our system found
We ran Marc Cole and TD Cole Ltd through Before You Pay while writing this article. TD Cole Ltd is on Companies House — but dissolved, registered in Lancashire while the work was being quoted in Bristol. No trade body membership found. The quote analysis triggered four flags: a £15,000 upfront deposit before any contract, payment required before written terms were provided, bank transfer only with no Section 75 protection, and a dissolved company with no legal standing to trade. The report below is exactly what a paying customer would have received.